Thread: US English vs Other English

The Anyone have showers in the dark? thread led me to wondering whether the phrase 'have a shower' or 'take a shower' is correct. I had always used them interchangeably, until one day I told a friend online that I was going to 'have a shower'. He said 'don't you mean "take a shower"?' Embarrassed, I said yeah, and from then on made sure to always use 'take'.

But apparently, and this I have learned only today, 'have' is correct in British English and 'take' is correct in US English.

This type of thing seems to cause much confusion. After programming for a while I started using 'color' instead of 'colour' because a lot of key-words contain the word 'color'. My programming professor last year did something odd that I pointed out, so I suspect it isn't only my problem. In the same segment of code, she used 'color' as a variable name while using something like 'ColourSampler' as a class name.

I've been used to talking online, for much of my life, and early on I started making a conscious effort to switch from the Canadian versions to the American versions of words.

Lately though, I notice that many people who I interact with, maybe even the majority, are not American. This is due to spending a lot of time on DV. In the last few months, I've begun to do something which might sound a bit strange, and the decision wasn't completely conscious. I've begun to use the American versions of words while talking to an American or to a mostly American audience, and use the normal versions while talking to anyone else.

Reply with anything relating to this topic. Your own frustrations or stories, which versions you use, reasons for the differences, history... Do you think that either version is inherently better? Do you think that a universal English standard should be set up that doesn't allow variation among countries?

Nah, they're always mutually understandable. It's a bit of a mystery for me why such variations emerged in the first place. English spellings have pretty ambiguous pronunciations, so the changes aren't improvements either. *Shrug*

The only thing about American English that really pisses me off is the facepalmingly mangled 'I could care less'.

Originally Posted by Xei

The only thing about American English that really pisses me off is the facepalmingly mangled 'I could care less'.

The american expression is 'I couldn't care less' Said quickly it sounds like what you wrote, but no one says that lol.

There are lots of types of American english too. We are a big country, we have normal US english, southern US english, Ebonics, and California English, all are very different and come from their culture. Sometimes americans can't understand other americans (and not because of accents.)

The difference is not usually spelling (although I've seen southerners spell a few words differently,) but slang and grammatical structure. For example, most people here know the REM song "Losing my Religion." Does anyone know what that term actually means without looking it up? It's southern english.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

The american expression is 'I couldn't care less' Said quickly it sounds like what you wrote, but no one says that lol.

You really do... for instance it was said all the time on the West Wing. And I've seen it in writing on the forums.

Originally Posted by Xei

You really do... for instance it was said all the time on the West Wing. And I've seen it in writing on the forums.

I could care less.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I could care less.

as could i

Originally Posted by Xei

The only thing about American English that really pisses me off is the facepalmingly mangled 'I could care less'.

Pissed me off so much. I just called someone on here out on it yesterday lol But so many people say it, without realising it means the opposite of what they want to say.

But take a shower is definitely wrong. You don't take the shower anywhere.

I'm too drubnk to think of more things, but Americans have fucked the language up a lot, so much so that most of the sayings, common phrases etc. they say barely make any sense.

Originally Posted by tommo

Americans have fucked the language up a lot

You lot have no room to talk, Bruce.

A lot of the spelling differences from British to American English are actually re-anglicizations of words and spellings raped into the language by the Normans.

The thought of someone saying "have a shower" made me giggle. I grew up being very frustrated about whether I should spell color or colour. A set standard might be more convenient, but maybe this variety makes it more interesting lol

'I could care less' doesn't even make sense to me. Isn't it supposed to express that you really don't care? If anything shouldn't it be 'I couldn't care less'?

That's what we say in England.

I think 'take' when used to mean things like 'take a shower' might be an Americanism by the way. I probably use it, but it seems more slangy.

You care so little you don't even care to care less, is what it means. OK?

I hear people say "I could care less" all the time and I tend to reply with "you can?" They don't really think about the question and say "YEAH!" Saying you could care less tends to imply that you care enough to have the ability to care even less.

I find myself spelling "endeavor" with the extra "u" (endeavour) for some reason.

Edit - oh and double negatives are absolutely hilarious. "I didn't get nothing!" somehow means "I got nothing" instead of "I got something."

Originally Posted by Sornaensis

You care so little you don't even care to care less, is what it means. OK?

I already explained "I could care less."

Also, Dianeva. Language isn't completely literal. DERP.

lern2idioms

Originally Posted by Sornaensis

Also, Dianeva. Language isn't completely literal. DERP.

lern2idioms

You must do idioms differently over there. Does 'beating a dead horse' mean 'having a valuable discussion' for you guys?

Originally Posted by Xei

You must do idioms differently over there. Does 'beating a dead horse' mean 'having a valuable discussion' for you guys?

[If this quoted post is not ironic..]

Xei? Not a criticism, just an observation: you do speak a strange form of english. "Beating a dead horse.."? Never ever heard that one.. "flogging a dead horse" is another matter. Your (perceived) accent sounds something like a native US-speaker trying to sound UK.. odd.

Bad UK can be amusing: "I would of went if I'd of known, but I didn't know nothing about it.." etc etc.

There's a german forum on which, recently, they have been discussing english phrases which can mean the opposite of what they literally state: their top favourite seems to be "That's very interesting.." with the top forum reply to that being "That's very interesting.."

I've gotta go and have a fag..

English is not my native language (google translate tells me to use the phrase "mother tongue" but I'm not going to do that because it sounds stupid). But since nobody besides Swedes speak Swedish we are forced to learn English in school.

The teachers don't care if we use British or American English, as long as we are being consistent. That is so annoying! How am I supposed to ever be able to remember if for example elevator is US English or not? Seriously, can't you people just come to an agreement or something!?

I want to speak British English because it sounds much more intelligent. No offence, but American English is very ugly. You all sound like morons. Unfortunately, American movies are much better than English movies so I kind of like speak with an American accent anyway. It is really depressing...

Of course you say "take a shower", not "have a shower". "Have a shower" doesn't make any sense at all. But that I can live with. However, it is kind of offending when you say that you're "crossing your fingers".

I'm keeping my fingers crossed =I'm lying
I'm holding my thumbs = I wish you luck

I don't know who is responsible for this, but you really have to do something about it.

"You don't know nuthin'!".

I think all these derived from Hickspeak, which unfortunately seems to be an important part of American culture.

Can someone please tell me how and where "lieutenant" and "colonel" became "leftenant" and "kernel"??

It's also funny how much variation there is in English orthography, French is spelled identically around the world.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I've begun to use the American versions of words while talking to an American or to a mostly American audience, and use the normal versions while talking to anyone else.

and use the normal versions while talking to anyone else.

normal

anyone else

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I think all these derived from Hickspeak, which unfortunately seems to be an important part of American culture.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Reply with anything relating to this topic. Your own frustrations

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Can someone please tell me how and where "lieutenant" and "colonel" became "leftenant" and "kernel"??

It's also funny how much variation there is in English orthography, French is spelled identically around the world.

I'm pretty sure the two words in question were both imposed from French/Latin.

Regarding colonel, though, I was having that conversation with my sister a couple weeks ago, and it occurred to me that the 'r' sound is just the result of contracting the 'olo' into a single sound, sort of like a diphthong with a consonant thrown in there. It's hard to convey in writing, but try saying co-lo-nel quickly, and the 'l' comes out strangled, half morphed into an Asian-style l/r phoneme already. It's easy to see illiterate or semi-literate soldiers and non-coms back in the day hearing and passing on the 'r' pronunciation without ever knowing how the word is written. An alternate phonetic representation, rather than ker-nel, would be co-l/r'-nel.

ETA:

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Americans can't even agree on how to say shit to each other. I've lived a few different places and they all have little differences in vocabulary

The number and disparity of dialects in the much smaller and less populous area of the British Isles c. 1776 was an order of magnitude greater than contemporary North America. The big island alone probably still has our continent matched or beat, not even counting Celtic tongues.

I've been in England for 2 months and I'm already starting to notice changes in how I phrase things in writing, (not so much spelling, just mainly phrasing/sentence construction) especially if I'm writing an email to a professor. I'm just now becoming aware of how much I stand out when I speaks, so that's likely to be affected next.

The funny thing is I've always had a habit of spelling behaviour with the U, (yeah, just that one word). But now that I'm here I've become aware that I've started to leave out the U, just to assert my American-ness.

I've always said 'couldn't care less' and have had arguments with Americans over it. I've tried to explain to them why 'could care less' doesn't make sense but they insist it does anyway.

Has anyone else heard the term 'alls'? In a sentence like, "Alls you gotta do is..." or something. It's like they're moving the 's' from the 'is' to the end of the 'all', but they don't take away the 'is'. It's always sounded extremely hickish to me but I've known a couple people (Americans) who do it.

Another thing that annoys me a bit which has nothing to do with the US is the fact that negatives are taken to mean opposites. For example, "I don't like you" is translated as "I dislike you" even though the literal translation could mean anywhere from hatred to a neutral stance. It comes up a lot.

And on another side note, people need to learn how to spell all of the forms of 'there'. I don't think a day goes by that I don't see it spelled incorrectly at least once. People also need to learn when to use 'me' and 'I'.

you're wrong, i could care less makes perfect sense:

i could care less if you understand why, but if i did then i simply wouldn't have said anything to you about it at all.

if i were to say i couldn't care less, that would be wrong because obviously i could care less, as i've just proving i don't by actually saying i couldn't care less.

so yeah, you're wrong